Chapter 4 - A Meditation on the Manichees Summary and Analysis

This chapter documents St. Thomas' struggle with the heresy of Manicheanism, the view that the material world is somehow intrinsically evil and that only the spiritual realm is of any value. The chapter opens with a long anecdote about St. Thomas visiting St. Louis, the King of France, and his preoccupation with settling the debate with the Manicheans. The Manichean form of bodily penance is contrasted with Catholic penance. The Manicheans undergo severe bodily sufferings because they think the body and the world are fundamentally bad. The Catholic, on the other hand, practices penance, not because he thinks the world is bad, but because it corrects man's attitude towards the world. However, the philosophy of Plato, which had been the primary philosophy of the Church, was tending the Church...